8 Ways to Create Videos on Chromebooks

Adobe Spark is a suite of free tools for creating images, videos, and simple web pages. Key features of Adobe Spark’s web app include an integrated Creative Commons image search tool, the option to download images as JPEGs, and the option to download your videos as MP4 files

Sharalike is a good option to consider when you want to create an audio slideshow. To create an audio slideshow on Sharalike simply import some images from your computer, your Android device or from your iPad, drag them into the sequence in which you want them to appear, and then add some music. Sharalike offers a small collection of stock music that you can use or you can upload your own music.

PowToon is a popular tool for creating animated videos online. PowToon provides a drag-and-drop editor for creating animated videos. The videos that you create feature digital paper cut-outs on a colorful background. Think of PowToon as an online tool for creating videos in the style made popular by Common Craft. PowToon provides drawings of people and objects that you can arrange on blank canvas. After adding your narration to the arrangement you can publish your video.

Magisto is a video creation tool that allows you to quickly drag videos and images from your desktop and or Google Drive account to your Magisto account. After you’ve uploaded the media that you want mixed, select a theme and music for your video.From the video clips and images that you upload, Magisto will select the best portions to remix and blend together. Magisto creates your video after you’ve completed the steps of uploading media, selecting a theme, and choosing music. The final video is emailed to you. In addition to the web-based service Magisto offers a Chrome app, an Android app, and an iPad app.

Chrome app called CaptureCast. CaptureCast, produced by Cattura Video, allows you to record the screen on your Chromebook as well as input from your webcam. To record a video with the webcam on your Chromebook open CaptureCast in your browser then allow it to access your webcam and microphone. You can specify how high of a resolution you would like to use to capture your video. You can also choose your audio quality. If you have an external microphone connected to your Chromebook, make sure that you have it enabled before you start recording. When you have finished recording in CaptureCast you can save your video on your Chromebook or upload it to YouTube, to Vimeo, or to Google Drive.

imbus Screenshot is a tool for creating screencast videos on Chromebooks. It is easy to install, includes customizable countdown timer, and offers multiple ways to save and share your videos. Screencasts recorded with Nimbus Screenshot can be saved to your local drive or to an online Nimbus account. I chose to save to my local drive then upload to my YouTube channel. You could also save to your local drive then share to Google Drive or another online storage service.
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more on video editing in this IMS bloghttp://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=video+editing

Title
Engage your students: connect CMS (D2L) to social media to enhance the learning process.

In this rapid succession of examples, one can experience a showcase how to enhance students’ engagement by modernizing D2L experience through connection with social media. Bring your own examples and participate in a discussion, which aims finding the right tools for your class and field of study.

D2L and Twitter
microblogging of 140 characters is often viewed as limiting. However, it can be the ultimate test how well students understand the learning material: making someone sum up in 140 characters what they learned this particular week in their class can take a lot of rewriting.
D2L allows a widget on its main page, where students can view and tweet. Students also can view and tweet from their mobile devices.
Tweeting during class is becoming mainstream in K12, also called “backchanneling.” Harnessing peers help to understand a concept discussed in class can save both time and efforts on the instructors’ side
Twitter is “making your twitter.com timeline more immersive by uncropping photos, so you can experience and present them as they were meant to be viewed.” http://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/12/13/improvements-in-social-media-tools/

D2L and Vine
Vine is a social media services, which provides the ability to share 7 sec videos. Vine is becoming more popular then Instagram (15 sec videos), with the simplicity to create short videos. Students can take sequence of short videos, which amount to 7 sec to reflect the main points of a project. E.g.: chemical reaction, biology dissection, progress of engineering planning, solving a math formula.
URL to the vine can be posted in the D2L discussion area for further collaborative effort or for peers’ and instructions evaluation
Vines are a click away from a FB group page or, with the right handle and hashtag, to a Twitter discussion
The bottom-line to evaluate if fitting your field of study is: can the content be narrated or is it much better if visualized. If the latter, Vine can be your salvation.How to Create Social Videos With Your Smartphonehttp://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/01/10/social-videos-with-your-smartphone/

Per SCSU IT disclaimer: MediaSpace (Kaltura) is a free, cloud-based video repository solution for campus that allows faculty and staff to upload and distribute video and audio content for academic or administrative purposes. Facilitators will discuss potential uses of MediaSpace for campus, demonst rate how to create Webcam and screen recordings, upload audio/video, and embed or link to MediaSpace content from D2L or a web site. YouTube is owned by Google and the integration, including statistics and analytics by Google are way beyond MediaSpace. The only selling point of MediaSpace is the FERPA requirement by MnSCU to host privacy data on a MnSCU owned server

I can also come up with an “exercise” that participants can do, just let me know: (1) if you want me to and (2) if participants are suppose to have a Facebook account that they can log into during the session

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Session K 2-3:15: 2PM Wed, Jan 8. Location: CH455

Title
Engage your students: gaming and gamification in the learning process.

Outline

As part of the broader discussion, a short discussion segment to form and agree on definitions and terms regarding games and gamification. Another short segment to seek consensus if this SCSU campus is ready to departure on the path of gamifying education. After several examples, of how games are used in education and gamification techniques, a discussion on how gaming and gamification can be streamlined amidst shrinking budget and increasing workload. More details and information about gaming and gamification at: http://scsu.mn/1F008Re

Audience:beginners to advanced

Outcomes:

By the end of this session, the participants will have a working definitions on play, games, serious games, game-based learning, digital game-based learning, gaming, gamification and badges. (more at http://scsu.mn/1F008Re)

By the end of the session, the participants will be familiar with the possibilities for integration of games in the educational process and for gamification of the educational process.

By the end of the session, the participants will be able to asses to what extent games and gamification fit their field of study

Plan:

Introduce each other and share the reason and interest to attend this discussion; what are the expectations from this discussion

Session M 10-11:15: CH 455

Title
Present and be presented: engage your students with modern ways to share information

Outline

Two trends plague education: the swamp of PowerPoint presentations and the lack of visual literacy. In this rapid succession of examples, one can experience a showcase of various cloud-based tools, which brings visual presentations way beyond PowerPoint and align with the Millennials demand for current social interaction. A discussion on how relevant these tools are to various disciplines and details on improving the interaction among instructors and students during the presentation. Ongoing discussion about design as part of visual literacy and the difference between blended learning and technology integration.

Audience:beginners to advanced

Outcomes:

By the end of this session, the participants will have understand the movement “Death by PowerPoint” and will understand the advantage of cloud-based presentation tools to MS PowerPoint

By the end of the session, the participants will be familiar with several tools, which successfully replace PowerPoint and well beyond.

By the end of the session, the participants will be able to asses to what extent games and gamification fit their field of study

By the end of the session, the participants will be able to discriminate between technology integration and blended learning.

Plan:

Introduce each other and share the reason and interest to attend this discussion; what are the expectations from this discussion

5 Tips for eLearning Voice Recording

These are the top 5 frequent e-Learning voice recording situations that I’ve come across:

A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.S.
Is this pronounced A-C-R-O-N-Y-M-S or ‘acronyms’? Is it read as letters or read as a word? A lot of scripts do have acronyms related to company or industry jargon. Define this in the script to avoid confusion and save re-records! You can use ALL CAPS but that may not be enough. Periods or dashes between letters (A-C-R-O-N-Y-M-S) generally indicate the word to be read as individual letters. But to be safe, put explanation notes in the margin or at the top of the script defining correct pronunciation, to reduce risk.

Audio file – technical specifications
If you hire a voice talent to record for you, usually you ask for either mp3 or wav audio files back from her. But are you also specifying the bit rate? 16 bit resolution is the gold standard. If you get 24 bit, your audio may sound garbled but only after it’s embedded into your program. Save time and trouble upfront by stating your audio tech specs!

Attitude or Point Of View
What kind of attitude do you want to hear in the voice recording? Think about the end listener. What will peak their interest and attentiveness more? By taking the small amount of time to define the “who is talking” and “to whom”, you can help the person recording to provide a POV (point of view) with the right attitude. Plus, it’s a great way to provide impact and underscore the project for the client. This is a gem – often unused! For example, is this a co-worker talking to her peers or (differently) is she showing a new person the ropes? Is this an SME (subject matter expert) sharing expert information? To whom – Top management or research engineers? If your project is required information, like an annual safety review or similar, it can often be very dry material. Taking a couple minutes to think about the role of who delivers such information can energize dry material. Some more general examples of attitude can be: Strong and Authoritative. Caring and Conversational. Casual like a co-worker. Blue collar vs white collar.

Proximity
Another gem of a different color! A voice recording can be done further or closer to the microphone. We call that ‘proximity’. This can change or impact the way a listener responds. Compare whispering vs talking at a cubicle vs presenting to a room of people. Changing ‘proximity’ can create poignant moments that listeners will notice. Let your clients know about this technique as well. Used sparingly = high impact!

Script Writing flow – or Writing with listening in mind
After all the information is written, review the script for a flow of words that, when read aloud, are easy to comprehend and will engage the listener. This may be hard to find time for, depending on your client’s budget – but it is one of those quality elements that can win you a client’s loyalty. When I see a line or two in a script that I think can be phrased to flow more conversationally, I might offer it as an alternate.

You will also see that there have been some changes to this version from the previous version. Just use your StarID to login, all you existing videos will be available in the site. There are a few new features in this version of Mediaspace. I have also updated the getting started document that I originally distributed to make adjustments for the new version. Once we are confident that you have made the transition to the new version, we will start broadening the use to other campuses and to faculty / staff use. Expect more announcements to come over the next couple weeks.

New Features

Direct links to videos can now be used. The steps to follow

Click on your Video title from your My Media listing

Click on the Action button (below the video player box, to the right)

Select “+ Publish”

Chance the privacy settings to “Unlisted”

Click on the “Share” button

Copy link and send out.

Embedding can use an Iframe or the standard legacy embed.

The embedding feature will now have the necessary security measures in place so that the D2L mixed content issues will not be present.

Downloading a copy of the video

You can now download a copy of the video from MediaSpace. If you are the owner of the video, when you select the “Edit” screen for the video, the player will have a “Download” option in the middle of the screen. This will allow an MPEG moving file to be downloaded to your workstation. This is only available in the “Edit” screen player, so only the owner of the video will have the ability to download it from MediaSpace.